It is obviously of great interest to trace the MS back further in time. It's one way of learning more about where it came from.
It is legitimate to ask whether the evidence presented by Marci is accurate. One may just decide to call it doubtful and reject it, or one may try to find out more about these events.
People who doubted it, presented several reasons for doubt:
- Marci misremembered
- Raphael could not have known
- The price is way too high
The reason I started this thread was to show that the third bullet is not justified, by using historical records.
Rudolf had a great interest for many things (though being a statesman wasn't really one of them). His interest in books of different types is evident from many sources.
- The catalogue of his "Kunstkammer" (a private museum, in a way) includes around 250 books
- Many more were sent to the library in Vienna (for example the 500 classics he acquired from Sambucus).
- The Swedes took many of his other books as war booty, and some of them ended up in Leiden.
On that last part, see this page of Philip Neal's web site:
You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view.
These are mostly alchemical, and include at least one from Carolus Widemann, who sold some books to Rudolf for 500 Taler (at the time of the sale equivalent to approx. 600 florins).
So, we have a statement in a letter saying Rudolf bought it. We can't be certain that it is true, but there is no objective reason to say that it is not true.
The points whether Raphael 'could have known' and Marci 'remembered correctly' have not been addressed in great detail , but the primary object of doubt in this respect is the amount paid, not the fact itself.
What the records show is that, even if the amount was misremembered or deliberately exaggerated, it is still in the range of prices that Rudolf was paying for books.
People objecting that Rudolf acquired the MS have also used the argument that it does not appear in his "Kunstkammer" catalogue. This argument is invalid since, as shown above, there are many hundreds of books known to have been owned by Rudolf that do not appear in this catalogue. That includes all his alchemical MSs (the ones Raphael was talking about).
What this all means is unfortunately not that much. Even when it is completely credible that Rudolf bought it (and it certainly was in the hands of one of his courtiers around or after the time of his death), the book could have really come from anywhere. Rudolf was acquiring artefacts from all over his empire and outside.
That's why it is still of great interest to find out the seller.